Actress Cynthia Nixon joins New York governorship race
News & Trends •
new york the fourth most populous state in the united states goes to the polls to elect a governor on november 6. but nixon remains a left-field candidate with cuomo very much the favored contender ahead of the democratic party primary on september 131 cynthia nixon the us actress who shot to international fame as workaholic lawyer miranda on sex and the city is running for new york governor unveiling monday a progressive platform championing greater equality and eschewing big business1 the move confirmed growing speculation that nixon intended to challenge incumbent democratic state governor andrew cuomo which went into overdrive last week when her wife christine marinoni stepped down from her job at the citys department of education1 i love new york and today im announcing my candidacy for governor. join us1 cynthia nixon @cynthianixon1 the actress and liberal activist who has campaigned for gay marriage public schools and access to womens healthcare threw her hat into the ring saying she was sick of politicians who care more about headlines and power than they do about us1 our leaders are letting us down. we are now the most unequal state in the entire country with both incredible wealth and extreme poverty. half the kids in our upstate cities live below the poverty line. how did we let this happen she said on the video1 i love new york. ive never wanted to live anywhere else but something has to change. we want our government to work again on health care ending mass incarceration fixing our broken subway1 together we can win this fight finished the new york born and raised nixon who said she grew up with her mother in what she called a one-bedroom fifth-floor walk-up1 the 51-year-old declared her candidacy with a two-minute campaign video posted on twitter that showed her at home with her wife and children riding the subway taking her young child to school and speaking at liberal political causes1 despite the stardom brought by her role alongside sarah jessica parker and kim cattrall on the wildly successful television comedy sex and the city which aired on hbo from 1998-2004 and spawned two spin-off movies the actress lags far behind in the polls1 a recent siena college research institute poll found that cuomo is overwhelmingly favored by democrats over nixon by 66 to 19 percent1 it remains unclear how much cuomo may be damaged by the recent conviction of an aide for bribery. according to the new york times his name was mentioned 163 times during the eight-week federal trial1 nixon worked for years as an actress before hitting the big-time with sex and the city and won a tony award americas most prestigious stage acting awards for her role last year in play the little foxes1 in addition to the video nixon has set up a campaign fundraising page that echoes some of the language used by 2016 democratic party presidential contender bernie sanders who electrified the left before ultimately losing to hillary clinton1 the page stipulates that nixon wont be accepting any corporate contributions and that instead our campaign will be powered by the people1 the mother of three is far from the first us actor to venture into politics. republican president ronald reagan got his political start after the world of entertainment as a two-term governor of california from 1967 to 19751 arnold schwarzenegger the austrian-born body builder is another actor turned two-term california governor who was in office from 2003-20111 former television comic al franken for whom nixon once campaigned also served as democratic senator of minnesota from 2009 to 2018 until he was forced to step down over sexual misconduct allegations1